Beach house: Best interior grey?

Now that we’ve got the exterior paint nailed down, it’s on to the interior. And for some reason this feels a lot harder. I know that I want a nice neutral grey, not too cold or too beige. I want it to be dark enough that it will contrast with the white trim in the room, but light enough to add the feeling of space and light to the room.

In reading about all the various colors, I learned about this concept called LRV. This refers to the amount of light a color either absorbs or reflects back into the room. On a scale of 1-100, colors that are below 50 tend to absorb light and are a bit heavier/darker feeling. Colors that are above 50 tend to be brighter colors that reflect light back into the space, adding a nice energy and vibrancy, and even a feeling of more space. Most of today’s most popular greys sit between 50 and 60 on the LRV scale.

Here are some colors that are strong contenders at the moment. None of these photos are mine, but were found on various websites where other people were also obsessing about the perfect shade of grey. Apparently we are legion!

Sherwin Williams Repose Gray is described as having a gray base with a subtle brown undertone. It also has a faint touch of purple. This color has an LRV of 60, which means it will bring a little light into the room, and might even make it feel a little larger. It is my current front-runner, though that tends to change day by day.

Sherwin Williams Agreeable Grey also has an LRV of 60. It has more brown than the average grey, and also has just the tiniest touch of purple.

Just to help compare the previous two colors, here’s a photo showing Agreeable Grey and Repose Grey side by side. Repose definitely looks more grey to me. Agreeable Grey looks a little warmer to me. But Repose seems to have a bit more ‘pop’ against whatever the trim is that’s in this photo.

Sherwin Williams Sea Salt has a mix of blue, green and gray. With an LRV of 64 it will reflect some decent light into the room. And, come on, Sea Salt just SOUNDS like the perfect paint color for a beach house, doesn’t it? Though I’m really drawn to this light, lovely color, I’m just a little afraid that the slightly green tone might be too much for the entire house. But maybe it would be nice in the master bath?

Benjamin Moore Moonshine has an LRV of 67, so it is the lightest of the colors I am currently considering. I LOVE the light it seems to bring into a space. It still seems to have a decent contrast to white trim, which is also good.

However, this is a Benjamin Moore color, not a Sherwin Williams. Our contractor is going to be using Sherwin Williams paint. I have heard from people that paint companies can match colors from other companies, but what I’ve also heard is that the colors rarely (never?) end up being an exact match. And I have spent enough time pondering this paint question that I really think I want an exact match.

The next color is also a Benjamin Moore color, called Edgecomb Grey. It leans more toward beige, like a different, very popular grey called Revere Pewter. But it is quite a bit lighter than Revere Pewter, with a LRV of of 63.

The final color that is a strong contender in my mind is a lighter Sherwin Williams grey called On The Rocks. Just like Edgecomb Grey, its LRV is also 63– definitely one of the lightest in the bunch, yet still (I think) has a decent contrast to white. Since there are many dark days on the rainy Oregon coast, I am thinking this lighter grey might be a good one to consider as well.

So which color would you vote for?

Which interior paint should we choose?

Sherwin Williams Repose Grey

Sherwin Williams Agreeable Grey

Shwerwin Williams On The Rocks

Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Grey

Sherwin Williams Sea Salt

Benjamin Moore Moonshine

Moonshine

I have used Repose grey and Mindful grey all over my house. Mindful is darker so I used it in South facing rooms.

Repose

I also like the sea salt....more for a kitchen or bathroom rather than main rooms. This post is very helpful for my own beachside renovation.... Thanks!!

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Repose for best true neutral, but Sea Salt because I’m a fan of calling certain intensities of colors neutral. It looks like a great color, esp with the black headboard in the one pic. And obviously the name is perfect. 🙂 (no to any beige.)

oh, and ultimately you’re the only one who needs to love the paint color. You’re not selling it, so all anyone else needs to see is clean, bright and refreshing, and your furnishings and other fixings will play a bigger part. So pick something you enjoy. Which is another reason I’d pick Sea Salt or another actual color. 🙂

My home’s interior is Sea Salt and I LOVE it! It is so neutral and is definitely beachy in feel! I went one shade darker in our dining room and 2 shades in the living room. ANY color furniture and decorations goes with it. Depending on the time of day it look more blue, green, or grey.

I like Repose Grey. Just this spring I went through this process and I will tell you that depending on the light in your home, the greige can look really drab. That is why I ended up with a Behr color which is close to Repose Grey and a true grey. For a beach retreat though I could see using a light sand/grey and accenting with the colors of the ocean.

I personally love the grays that have lots of beige tones vs true grays, so I like Agreeable Gray way more than Repose. True grays feel too sterile, while the blending into a greige tone feels so warm & welcoming. I do love sea salt for bathrooms through, in case you are considering more than one color in the house.

I am going to ask our contractor if he’d be game to do two colors, with Sea Salt in the bathrooms and something more neutral on the main walls. But I am guessing it would cost more..? Could be we might have him just leave the master unpainted, so that we could paint it ourselves in Sea Salt….

My folks completely remodeled an entire 6,000 square foot house. The whole house is agreeable grey. It looks beautiful in every season, in every lighting, in every room. Every color my mom has put with it is lovely. I cannot imagine you would regret choosing it for the beach house.

We painted the walls with a Sherwin Williams grey years ago (looks like agreeable) and loved the way it made the walls retreat into the background. Now our art has a visual pop. Good luck. I suspect you’ll love any of these.

We have gone with grays in our home this year and love it! We do find that the furnishings/decor of the room will pull out certain shades, so what looks more traditional gray in one room looks blue in another based on the furniture we have in there. I think you will enjoy it!

I heartily second the comment to stay away from the greige… it is much harder to work with without going into the drab zone.

Sea salt could be very light and refreshing, I don’t think you’d regret it, but I think the versatility of a true gray (repose) will be your best choice in the long run!

Hey there! I had to post b/c I have used two of your color options together, with great results. I posted on your other site, but we have Agreeable Grey all over our downstairs (except our kitchen, which is Sea Salt with white cabinets). White trim, white curtains, and then I painted the interior doors Sea Salt. We have 5 kids, so the Sea Salt helps keep visible fingerprints on doors to a minimum. We have lots of coral and blue for accents. We’ve had both grey and brown furniture and it all looks great, as does a lot of different shades of wood stain. I live in central NC, hours from the beach, but am a Florida native and definitely noticed as I was redecorating that my preferences lean ‘beach’, airy, open, light…